Peter Jackson's Middle-earth Saga

[JD]

I enjoyed the Hobbit films well enough, but I think they pale in comparison to LotR (though there are portions of LotR that aren't all that hot, or that haven't aged well), and I also think stretching them to three movies was a dubious decision.

Ironically, though, I feel the extended edition of Five Armies is superior to the theatrical cut. Go figure... It's almost as though when they needed to cut material, they cut the wrong material.

Really though, I feel as though if you go from LotR to King Kong to Hobbit, you see Peter Jackson's directing gradually giving way to his own worst impulses.

I've actually liked all of Peter Jackson's movies I've seen, but he definitely does have bad habits that really do need to be reigned in. I think he's one of the directors who tends to give in to his worst habits when he's given complete freedom, which definitely seemed to happen with The Hobbit trilogy.
That said, I did still really enjoy the movies despite some issues. They're not at the level of LOTR, but they still had enough great things in them to counter Jackson's excesses.

 

[Jedman67]

Hardly, unless you're using the definition very creatively.

Everyone dies?

I'm talking about Gimli's attraction to Galadriel.

Gimli's attraction to Galadriel was not described as a romantic attraction but something higher, for lack of a better term almost like a goddess.

 

[Set Harth]

Everyone dies?

By that definition all romances end in tragedy whenever the participants fail at immortality. Thus the claim becomes meaningless.

 

[JWPlatt]

Reductio ad absurdum.

 

[Jedman67]

By that definition all romances end in tragedy whenever the participants fail at immortality. Thus the claim becomes meaningless.

The source material is quite clear that Elf-Human love is frowned upon at best, with only 3 examples in all of history - Beren and Luthien, Aragorn and Arwen, Tuor and Idril; and they were all tragedies to boot. An elf falling in love with a human was considered all but impossible, certainly for romance with a dwarf was simply unheard of.

Beren died retrieving the Silmaril from Morgoth. Luthien died to be with him.
Tuor's entire family and most of his inlaws and the city of Gondolin were killed and destroyed. Her survived in hardship until he "passed away" by sailing to Valinor.
Aragorn lost many of his family in the fight against Sauron, and Arwen was the sole child of Elrond who forsake immortality to marry a human, and died apart from the rest of her family.

 

[mos6507]

With regards to Peter injecting juvenile humor and antics into the story, I'm not sure why that's such a surprise.

Go rewatch the Prologue section of Fellowship of the Ring.

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That is an exercise in a filmmaker, regardless of his track record, sticking to the tone of the source material rather than turning it into an outright farce.

He lost the plot with The Hobbit.

 

[Set Harth]

Beren died retrieving the Silmaril from Morgoth. Luthien died to be with him.

And then what?

Tuor's entire family and most of his inlaws and the city of Gondolin were killed and destroyed.

But I thought it was supposed to be everyone. You'd at least think the lovers themselves would be included. Now we're throwing in family, in-laws, unrelated people, people whose deaths didn't result from the pairing... ugh.

Her survived in hardship until he "passed away" by sailing to Valinor.

Oh, so now we're not even talking about actually dying, just going to Valinor. How tragic! Sucks to be them.

Aragorn lost many of his family in the fight against Sauron, and Arwen was the sole child of Elrond who forsake immortality to marry a human, and died apart from the rest of her family.

There's that "fail at immortality" thing again. So they ended up an old married couple eventually broken up when the first one dies of old age. And just like they say every time that happens in the real world, IT ENDED IN TRAGEDY!!!

 

[Mr Light]

Oh another addition I absolutely loved was showing the White Council attacking the Necromancer. I had tears watching that scene... to actually see a direct portrayal of such a momentous event...

 

[DigificWriter]

As I've been rewatching The Desolation of Smaug, I've been on the lookout for instances of "mirroring" between the film and its LotR counterpart, The Two Towers, but have actually found that the film mirrors all 3 LotR films at times, which I find both interesting and neat.

Some examples:
- The tension-filled meeting between Thorin and Thranduil is a direct mirror of the first meeting between Gandalf and Denethor in The Return of the King

- The entirety of the "Barrels Out of Bond" sequence is pretty much a direct mirror of the "Battle of Amon Hen" in The Fellowship of the Ring

- Both Desolation and Return open with flashback sequences

- The scene where the Mirkwood Elves swoop in to kill the spiders and then surround Thorin's Company directly mirrors the sequence from The,Two Towers where the Rohirrim kill the Orcs anc Uruk Hai that have abducted Merry amd Pippin, near the borders of Fangorn, and the sequence where the same Rohirrim surround Gandalf, Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas when they first arrive on the outskirts of Rohan

- The scene where Gandalf confronts the Necromancer is blocked and shot almost identically to the scene in The Return of the King where he comes face to face with the Witch King of Angmar, right down to the way his staff is destroyed

- There's a brief moment during the Barrels Out of Bond sequence where Legolas slides down a stone incline in almost the exact same way he slides down the stone staircase at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers

I also noticed a design similarity that I hadn't previously picked up on in terms of Gandalf's staff in both this movie and An Unexpected Journey and his staff in The Two Towers and The Return of the King in that the headpiece designs of both are oblong, curvy, and twisted and give him a similar profile/stance/posture when he's either swinging them around or otherwise gesturing/posing with them.

 

[Set Harth]

Both Desolation and Return open with flashback sequences

All of the Jackson ME films open with flashback sequences, with the notable exception of Five Armies. That's why the lack of a flashback sequence in the last one was surprising.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ I wouldn't call Fellowship's opening a flashback because it's told from a "God's eye" perspective, AUJ's opening is a "flash-forward" relative to the rest of its narrative, and Two Towers opens pretty much where Fellowship leaves off.

 

[JWPlatt]

Let's just call them prologues then, which is how they were referred to anyway, and the fact remains.

 

[DigificWriter]

I would define a Prologue as being a sequence that is narrated and/or told from a "God's eye" perspective, and a flashback as being something that 'fills in the blanks' in the narrative and is told from a particular character's direct point of view. Now some might see that distinction as arguing semantics, but when I think like a writer/storyteller, I can't help but define them as separate things.

 

[sojourner]

Two perspectives achieving the same goal of filling in backstory.

 

[Set Harth]

AUJ's opening is a "flash-forward" relative to the rest of its narrative

You mean the Bilbo and Frodo stuff? I'm talking about Erebor, Smaug and the dwarves.

and Two Towers opens pretty much where Fellowship leaves off.

Do what now?

The Two Towers starts with "you shall not pass" and then the ensuing battle between Gandalf and the Balrog, which surely takes place prior to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring!

 

[DigificWriter]

You mean the Bilbo and Frodo stuff? I'm talking about Erebor, Smaug and the dwarves.

.Which isn't really a flashback so much as it is a Prologue embedded within a flash-forward sequence.

The Two Towers starts with "you shall not pass" and then the ensuing battle between Gandalf and the Balrog, which surely takes place prior to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring!

The point is conceded, but I'm not sure it technically qualifies as either a Prologue or a flashback by the definitions I outlined.